Missy's Game Shelf

  • Pokemon Treasures of Area Zero The Teal Mask and Indigo Disk DLC Review

    I already made a review of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet and for the record I don’t even know if the DLC’s are finished yet. I will start with the Kitakami’s DLC revolving around Ogerpon it adds more story and pretty much exists as setup for the Indigo Disk. It focuses on lore and more Pokemon to capture introducing the new rivals Kieran and Carmine as well as bringing in some older Pokemon and more story. It can actually be accessed as soon as you start the Treasure Hunt in Scarlet and Violet. All Pokemon will be level 15-20 if you go there that early, however if you already beat base Scarlet and Violet the levels boost to 60-65. This is similar to how Sword and Shield handled its base DLC the Isle of Armor so I’m not surprised to see a similar system.

    The Indigo Disk is the other pack to access it you need to clear the story modes of both Scarlet and Violet base game and Part One of Treasures of Area Zero. Here Wild Pokemon easily reach later levels, but you can also catch all of the starters and get revisits from Alolan Pokemon and Galarian Slowpoke. Boss Battles are the hardest as Pokemon reach early 80s and even the Academy Ace Tournament gets high level. I said before that it doesn’t seem finished this is because it seems no one has figured out how to unlock the last three coaches and it is believed that there will be an epilogue chapter and those three will be released then. This all makes the Indigo Disk similar to Galarian Star which had its focus on battles and capture. You can capture the starters and the increase in battles makes this a fun time though the quests called BBQ’s can be boring and repetitive but worth it if you just want the starters in this game. Espicially if you consider this is the first time some have been on switch. So is the plot concluded with Teropagus’ capture and the end of Kieran as Champion. I don’t know the last three trainers are rumored to be Arven, Penny, and Nemona so we need to wait for the ending. Fortunately, while writing this Pokemon released a new trailer showing an epilogue chapter set for January 11 so we only need to wait a little while for the ending. Now this news actually isn’t posted anywhere on the website as far as I can tell, but instead on the official Youtube channel for Pokemon.

    I overall enjoyed these as they don’t fix Scarlet and Violets many issues and some of those glitches are actually funny if you don’t mind one or two visual chaos. It has been awhile since I’ve seen some of these starters. And seeing some starters like Snivy and Tepig was a good thing as those two haven’t been featured since the 3DS games through transfer or Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire while Oshawott was present in Legends. I already said Scarlet and Violet were disappointing and needed more things to do, but at least the game is slightly more playable. Not good, but slightly better than it was.

    Sources:

    “A new adventure in the Land of Kitakami awaits!” YouTube, uploaded by The Official Pokémon YouTube channel, Dec 20, 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_T9u6T9eOg

  • The Day Before Actually Released?

    I covered a likely scam game that I believed would never release at the time it was Steams most wish listed game. So the things I covered was the trailer was mostly made of copied content such as font from The Last Of Us and certain shots similar to The Division or Call of Duty. I think this is the fastest I had ever heard of a game releasing to closure of the studio. Fantastic had closed within days of their launch for the record they announced closure less than a week after launch. Now I do want to correct something I had said the whole deal with the trademark dispute was shady while given track record of shady practices from the studio was what led me to this, this was possibly the only thing true. It hardly helps them and a part of me believes that this would have been better if this game never released as from certain Steam reviews as well as this being the only game I know of for IGN to give a 1/10 to be entirely unplayable. For the record that is the lowest I have ever seen one of their scores. I only have pity for Gabriel Moss the writer for IGN who had to write that review as he was playing an early build for the game and who knows what changes or fixes were made if any. If you are wondering servers for the Day Before and Propnight are up, though who knows or for that matter cares, for how long. I think I was rough on this game for the lack of originality as well as the studio’s habit of advertising one thing to seemingly bring in audiences then show another game of much lower scale. Now I strangely believe I wasn’t rough enough. The only thing people will have difficulty with when deciding the worst game of the year is the order. This year alone we got games like Kong Skull Island, The Lord Of The Rings Gollum, Red Faction, and now The Day Before. If only this game waited a month it could have been added to next years lists.

    Moss, Gabriel. “The Day Before Early Access Review.” IGN, Posted 11 Dec. 2023 Updated 12 Dec. 2023 https://www.ign.com/articles/the-day-before-review Accessed 25, Dec. 2023

  • Fears Around Open Hand Grow May Cause Backlash To Charity Streams

    Let me state that several Youtubers and Streamers run Charity Streams to send money to good causes or raise awareness.  MatPat from Game Theory has streams yearly for raising money for St. Jude. RTGame has run multiple charity runs among others. Let me state I doubt any of these have malicious intent. However, due to events with Open Hand people may be reluctant to help with fears the money never makes it to its desired cause. I think if you are that cautious you should donate directly and if you still want to watch the stream go for it. I don’t think any of them will be offended about someone doing that especially given recent events. My biggest fear is they will stop doing these events lets face it Youtubers and Streamers can reach audiences across the world they can raise a lot of money for good causes. There are some who will be reluctant to donate to any cause and you can’t blame them for that, but I sincerely hope that they continue to try and reach out to their fans and help those who need it. No one can be blamed for reluctance to any of their intentions, but I doubt a number of these have bad intentions or anything shady. The only thing people can do is wait and see. I want Charity Streams to continue as they are great ways to get money to people who need it. I need to say this again donate directly if you are that cautious. No one can complain that all of this has left people less likely to donate, but that is bad for companies that rely on donations for research and in the end no one wins. I don’t want people to quit donating to St. Jude or other research centers because of one bad apple, but I also won’t be surprised if they do. The best thing we can do is donate directly to these organizations and try helping that way. Way to go Jirard not only did you personally disrespect your own mother, you cast shade and disrespected friends and colleges as well as those who try to do any kind of good in their lives. I am certain that was never the intent but you can’t deny that now for Christmas some less fortunate will have empty stockings and people who needed that money to get through winters heavier months I pray for as now they may never get the help they so desperately needed. No matter how you look at it someone will suffer either the Creators who run these events will have to try to get money to these as best they can knowing full well it will be an uphill battle and work hard to genuinely gather money or the people suffering from anything as they may not get the help they need. And that is what makes me the angriest and possibly the most scared of in this situation the lack of trust will cause a lot of people who can help but won’t or the people who need the help and due to someone else being malious and incompetent may never recieve it. For an opinion piece this was long and I wanted to write what I felt the biggest issue was. The fact that even if this was caught sooner the ripple effect won’t just go away. (While editing I found out Defunctland did a Charity Stream for Give Kids the World Village. I wish them the best and hope the best intentions going forward. I do hope that they were able to get the money for children with illnesses and are able to help. If all goes well maybe we can face the New Year with a smile rather than fear of what’s to come.)

  • The Completionist Charity Scam

    I want it stated here that I am neither a lawyer or financial expert so I can’t give any kind of advice or thoughts on that and can only look at the evidence presented and form my own opinion. Ten years ago the youtuber Jirad the Completionist started the Open Hand foundation to collect money for the Alziemers Association and other Dementia help organizations. Or that was the idea, Karl Jobst and Mutahar from SomeOrdinaryGamers two other youtubers started investigating the ‘charity’ and by checking IRS tax forms discovered that they never moved money from Open Hand to anywhere. Karl and Mutahar later called him out on the filings and Jirard finally donated the money due to public pressure. Now Jirard was credited with giving a lot of lesser known Youtubers their start and boost in the community. Caddicarus, The Game Theroists, Peanut Butter Gamer, Projared, among others are at least familiar or directly tied to him. Now being fair I don’t know if they were aware of the situation entirely and I would hope they look into it with an open mind before saying anything. What is more is Indieland was amazing for lessor known developers to show off their game and gain attention to their projects that they rightly deserved. Jirard is well liked in the community and for some it is hard to imagine malicious intent, alternatively that opens up the most incompetently run business then. Jirard states he didn’t want the money going to a CEO or used for something other than research. That is fair, but why did it take ten years for one donation he stated he wanted a restricted donation then just have it set as a restricted donation tons of places have settings that allow donations to be restricted including the Alziemers Association. Why would that be so difficult? And why did it take ten years? There is no doubt that he did a lot for the community, but there is also the possibility that 600,000 dollars of other peoples money given under false pretenses also exists. Whether you want to judge malice or incompetence is irrelevant due to the fact Karl Jobst and Mutahar both provide evidence in their videos and the Completionist sadly doesn’t. He plays the sympathy card multiple times even trying to use an autopsy report as evidence, but that is just disrespectful and trying to use his late mother as a shield for his own mistakes. One thing you keep reading is that people keep saying he is so nice he has no reason to scam people. I think this is the same thing people were saying about Sam Bankman Fried and he is currently on trial for Fraud so can we stop with that excuse clearly it doesn’t matter how kind someone is outright if they can they will still steal money.

    Sources:

  • The Day Never Scam

    The Day Never Scam

    The Day Never is one of the highest wish listed game on steam. While most can say zombie shooters are fun. Whether it exists is a different story. Every time this game makes an announcement they show some different game of smaller scale. Furthermore there is little evidence the game actually is being made. After a few delays on a trailer they at first announced a trailer to IGN with a countdown, but never showed anything even after several hours of the countdown reaching zero. They sent a tweet explaining that due to complications the trailer will play at a later date. Despite some outrage when it did show the trailer it was cinematic then showed a different game entirely no gameplay was ever shown. They then planned a full gameplay trailer only to run into a trademark dispute. In the entire time the game showed trailers and while it is unclear why it was never trademarked the company delayed the trailer again. Finally, it is speculated the font on the logo is the same as the Last of Us on purpose. If it was a coincidence that is understandable, but when your own moderators are questioning whether your game actually can release in a playable state and exists something feels off.

    Kira TV. “The Most Popular Game on Steam Is A Massive Scam?” Youtube, uploaded by Kira, Feb 8, 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lWpfOeTbMQ

  • NINTENDO ESHOP SHUT DOWN

    As of March 27 the eshop on Wii U and 3DS are shut down. While I understand why they did it I think about the only good thing on Wii U was the virtual console selection as well as the eshop in general. The majority of Wii U games got ported within a year of the Switch being released. I was originally going to warn others, but truthfully it comes as no surprise to anyone. The Switch is getting more games and attention so it makes sense to shut down things. I just wish they kept the Eshop up for easy access to older games.

    The new subscription games thing on the switch isn’t working out for me. Why do I have to pay monthly to play games that were always playable for the same price but without monthly payments? Why do I need to link accounts just to pay more? This isn’t a good replacement for what worked before. Nintendo may be against gambling in their games, but being scam artists isn’t above them. Fortunately, for me the games I already downloaded still work so I will continue to use my 3ds and Wii U for that. Not a long post this time just a lot of sadness and anger at Nintendo they love taking away things that work so they can make more money off of some stupid system. Mario All Stars 3D would have been a great game, but now no one can play it unless they own it for no real reason other than they made the subscription service with Mario 64, but what about Sunshine and Galaxy. they effectively took away a great product for an inferrior product to make more money over time. I will not pay for this service.

    Score: 0/10

  • Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of the Sky Review

    With all of Pokemons recent failures and the rumors of them attempting scam NFTs. I wanted to go back and play what in my opinion is the best Pokemon game. Released in Gen 4 as a spinoff to Diamond, Peral, and Platinum it managed to surpass the main games and stay to the ideas and themes of that generation. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of the Sky is highly considered not only an amazing game but also a good start on if you want to try dungeon crawlers.

    Gameplay

    The game is a dungeon crawler meaning you enter dungeons that are randomized. Everything from items to location of the exit is random. There is four members of a party allowed in each dungeon, but the first two will always be the player and their partner. Different moves have different range allowing you to attack things further away. Using too many moves will deplete PP like usual so you need to be careful. Some items can be used as weapons and can be thrown.

    Plot

    The story is you wake up and are transformed into a Pokemon with no memory. You learn time is getting distorted and even stopping completely in some places. This leads you to try and discover the cause and protect the world. As it is the game is best played blind as the story is its strongest element even having additional chapters to Explorers of Time and Darkness to explain even further.

    Conclusion

    This game is enjoyable as a dungeon crawler and rpg. It is one of my favorite games and I don’t regret playing it. Sadly it reminds me of how far Pokemon went from a fun game series with a lot to do and creative creatures to whatever you want to call it now. I loved playing this, but it remains as a game that pointed out Pokemons high points and then abandoned those.

    Score: 5/10

  • Square-Enix Replace NFT Obsessed CEO

    First I’m going to explain an NFT so those who don’t know can keep up. NFT stands for Non-Fungible Token, currency that you can’t use. NFT’s have been mostly used for crypto scams and they are mostly just JPEGS of terrible art and try to create a limit on something where there doesn’t need to be. NFTs are scams because you can just take a screenshot. People try to buy or collect NFT’s to sell for real money when they really aren’t getting anything.

    Alright, in an article from Ethan Gach of Kotaku reporting this, after a massive decline in profits Square replaced their CEO, Yosoke Masuda. I feel like his choice to announce an interest in NFT’s when most were proven scams and a desire to add them to games started the downhill in profit for them. Most of Squares recent games have been online so many were likely scared to play anything from them due to a fear of getting scammed. Online espicailly may have this issue considering real money involved. Furthermore, despite their large catalog of games, most of their online ventures either survive a month or go without updates. Forsaken died a month after launch as Square may be unaware online games need time not to mention people were likely saving for Hogwarts Legecy rather than a game that Squares history with online told everyone bare bones content and will likely die before gaining an audience or even after an audience no updates and server shutdown. They have an endless loop and no one really knows how long the Final Fantasy games will last.

    While most are worried or skeptical of the new CEO, Takashi Kiryu, we really can only wait and see what he does. It does not seem to be going well as Forsaken was shown to be a loss for Square and the Symbiosis NFT centric game trailer by Square was mass downvoted and no one seems happy. My guess is Square really doesn’t know where it went wrong and believes NFT’s, Live Services, and inability to learn from mistakes makes progress.

    Sources:

  • Pokemon Fans Losing Save Files After Pairing Scarlet/Violet with Go

    I mostly am writing this to warn others that there seems to be a bug in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet associated with the DLC and Pokemon Go. If it was any other game I’m sure this would be a shock, but Scarlet and Violet are so poorly made that it shouldn’t really be surprising anymore. And before anyone blames quality control or testers remember this they probably ran into the many issues, but were ignored and developers decided fixing anything was too difficult and chose the lazy route instead. I find it hard to actually believe this game went through quality and no one caught anything.

    Bugs aside no ones sure what is causing this the bigger problem is if pairing or the DLC is to blame or the games in general. I had high hopes that the DLC would, similar to sword and shield, be able to make the games better or more stable, however that doesn’t seem to be the case. It isn’t like Go has been an issue before, we could pair in the Let’s Go games and transfer pokemon. Most current Pokemon games have at least some integration with go seeing as almost all Pokemon are in Go and it can connect to home. While I also downloaded the newest patch I have yet to play it or send postcards so I don’t think the fault is the patch or it could be massive amounts of playtimes. I found that bugs in these games were more common the longer I played if I play an hour or two pretty stable maybe one or two animation bugs. Past three or so hours complete crashes, animation bugs literally everywhere, and who knows what else. Due to this I’m less effected because my playtime was interrupted so much I only have around 20-40 hours in game enough to beat the main plot but rarely grinded or shiny hunted and if my save gets wiped I’m not losing hundreds of hours and multiple shinies like others. In my honest opinion it is best to approach anything with the newest update with a level of caution.

    Sources:

  • Kirby: Return To Dreamland Deluxe Review

    I had yet to play Return to Dreamland, but I did play Planet Robobot, Triple Deluxe, and Star Allies. These were made based on the same engine as the original Return to Dreamland. I also played Superstar Ultra, The Crystal Shards, Squeak Squad, and Forgotten Lands.  So I know the series pretty well at this point.

    While nothing is wrong with the game it seems more like a port with a few added features. There is now a Helper Magalor to assist in single player mode. I never used this unlike in Star Allies and Superstar Ultra it seemed entirely optional. The co op is similar to New Super Mario Bros. in which levels can be done and challenges completed no matter how many players there are. As for the abilities each player has a different set completely I like this in comparison to Super Mario the differences are more than this player can run slightly faster or do a small float. Kirby has the most diverse move set thanks to his copy ability but those don’t last forever if you get hit you lose the ability if you can’t eat the star it turns into, Meta Knight has the sword ability forever, King Dedede has the hammer power up, and Bandana Waddledee has the spear ability. Each power controls differently mirroring the copy power they are based on.

    The only bad thing I have to say about this game are the Ultra Abilities while fun unlike having entire stages like Robobot would later in the series based around upgraded powers it seemed more like they were there to just be there sure the power was fun to use but the sections were normally at the end of a level to gain access to a portal rather than be its own real added benefit.

    Plot

    Kirby is running from King Dedede and Bandana Waddledee who wants a cake while Meta Knight is just there by coincidence. A portal opens and a ship crashes the group run into Magalor inside and agree to help him with repairs. Soon it is revealed that Magalor is evil and plotted to have Kirby and his friends defeat Landia to get a crown made of absolute power. Leading to the last fight in the game against Magalor.

    As for the plot itself a villain tricking Kirby to end the world has happened multiple times before. So much like Mario the plot really doesn’t change. I just find it fun that rather than rivals or enimies King Dedede and Meta Knight are treated as allies and Kirby’s friends. As for Bandana Waddledee we know from Superstar he is loyal to King Dedede but has helped Kirby multiple times and is able to stay on good terms with him through the series.

    Finally Magalors quest is I think new to this game it is a single player adventure unlocked after the main game where you play as the villain after the events. Magalor lost all his powers and now needs to recover them. For the most part I had fun with this but his Dark Needles move was difficult to pull off consistently it is supposed to cause damage and shield you when your combo meter is full but it never worked for me unless I was lucky. Making it unreliable compared to just getting the shield power up and normal attacks.

    Score: 7/10